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So let’s get the obvious out of the way shall we? The White Queen is not Game of Thrones. Nor is it Game of Thrones-lite.

If you are a fan of the saga of Westeros, then you will be sorely disappointed by the much hyped 10-part series premiering Friday, Sept. 6, at 9 p.m. on Super Channel.

Producers no doubt were hoping to gain some audience share from Thrones fans as this series about warring factions battling for a throne takes more than a few cues from the HBO hit.

After all, we all know winter is coming. But it will be spring of 2014 before Season 4 of Game of Thrones airs.

However, if you are just in need of a medieval fix to wile the hours before Thrones returns, then this will do just fine. Mostly.

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It’s all about perspective of course. Think of it as eating a chocolate bar to stave off hunger pangs on the way to your meal at Scaramouche. Or perhaps going to Medieval Times for a dinner and tournament because your trip to England got cancelled.

There are worse things to do than drink orange pop and devour chicken breast while watching fake knights joust.

But to be fair, The White Queen is about entertainment, not historical accuracy. And viewers’ remorse is mitigated because the two principals, Rebecca Ferguson as Queen Elizabeth and Max Irons (son of The Borgias’ Jeremy Irons) as King Edward, are gorgeous to look at. There is also much disrobing going on. And yes, the costumes and cinematography are stunning, once you get past the boob and butt shots.

The one-off series is an adaptation of British author Philippa Gregory’s book series The Cousins War, set in 15th-century England and depicting the three-decade feud for the British throne.

That War of the Roses was also something of an inspiration for author George R.R. Martin in his Game of Thrones saga. But that’s pretty much where the similarity ends.

Where Thrones is gritty and bone-crunchingly good, there are few bones to be seen in The White Queen.

It is almost as if producers decided they needed a Harlequinized version to appeal to female audiences.

There is much talk of war and then, just as you expect to be thrust into a battle scene, someone returns and tells viewers what happened. If we wanted someone to tell us what the war was like, we’d be watching CNN.

Women like their gore, too, and Game of Thrones has its fair share of female viewership, so it’s unclear what is accomplished here.

But perhaps it’s unfair to compare The White Queen to Thrones, since the latter is firmly in the realm of Middle-earth fantasy. Although there is some reference to witchcraft in The White Queen, it is based for the most part on historical fact.

The primary distinction is that it is told through the eyes of female characters, of the women caught in the conflict for the throne, including Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Anne Neville.

One of Gregory’s other period novels, The Other Boleyn Girl, gave a feminist take on Tudor England. It is a point of view that has been lacking in both fiction and in the history books.

Swedish actress Ferguson is cast to type as Woodville, and does a credible, thoughtful job. Irons still needs seasoning, playing King Edward as more of a jaunty Disney prince than beleaguered ruler. Still, he knows how to don a robe, having practised as a Burberry model in an earlier life.

The story, more significantly, centres on the machinations of the women behind the throne. And this is what fascinated Ferguson.

“This is not my history, being Swedish, so I was amazed at the high stakes,” says Ferguson. “I mean, this is what happened at the time. You’d be York, then Lancaster, then you’re on the throne. Then you’re off the throne and in a monastery.”

Gregory says while much has been written on the history of kings, there is little on the lives of upper-class women in that time period in England.

“One of the reasons I’m so pleased and proud of this series is that we’re telling women’s stories,” says Gregory. “There’s almost nothing written about these women. You can find information on their husbands. You can find their fathers. You can find their enemies if they’re men. What you can’t find is really anything about these women.”

What viewers might discover is a look into a world where marriage is power, where a woman’s place may be beside the throne, but her fate is decided behind the scenes. It’s not necessarily new, but it’s a lavish take on illuminating a period in time where women were chattel.

But don’t take it for a history class.

Gregory herself does acknowledge that television has a powerful, perhaps too powerful, influence on educating viewers.

“Honestly, at some levels we’re quite dumb,” says Gregory, about viewers in England not knowing their basic history. “You know a lot of people have got all their information about Henry VIII from (The Tudors star) Jonathan Rhys Meyers.”

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